Gabriella returned with two tall glasses of water, decked out with a pair of ice cubes each. She handed Joe his, whilst setting her own down on the bedside table, well within her reach as she would study. She moved to sit herself down onto her mattress, but wound up flopping backwards onto it, staring at the ceiling as she let out an exasperated breath.

“Sorry, I really hate those two sometimes.”

Why did she always have to get stuck with babysitting? Her parents insisted that she waste all her free time studying so that she could follow their lives, not giving a damn about her musical passion, but the moment they needed someone to look after Joe and Kenny, suddenly she had even more responsibilities. You’d think they could at least pay her a little bit more money on top of it, but no, apparently her weekly allowance included such tasks. What a joke.

She pulled herself back up from her bed, looking down at Joe and giving him a resigned shrug. “Well, we better get to it, right?” She said with a half-smile, reaching for one of her note pads and her chemistry textbook to go with it. The only thing worse than being made to study was being made to study science, the lucky girl she was.

Only a little while passed before Gabby’s mind began to wander, the bright sunshine outside still mocking her as the words on the page stayed so dull by comparison. She still knew all these things; even if she didn’t revise, she could probably pass the test well enough. Right now she could be writing a new song, or meeting with Cho to rehearse for the next open mic night, but as usual her parents were bent on her having no fun whatsoever.

She needed a distraction. Thankfully, group study sessions worked perfectly in this situation.

Gabriella couldn’t stop herself from breaking into a teasing smile as Joe began babbling. As great a guy as he was, she couldn’t help but find his panics over the smallest things just a little bit entertaining, bless his heart. She’d decided long ago that the right move when his mouth started running circles was to just let him get it all out, waiting for as long as she needed to. After that, she could act like nothing happened at all to save him face, and everything would be fine again. She’d enjoy his overreactions, not turn them into a joke.

“Oh, yeah, those should be fine.” She replied after he produced the cookies, which had in fact not just been a quiet joke before as she’d assumed. Her face had gone quiet for just a second, debating how many of the cookies she could enjoy without regretting it later, before she had smiled back her answer. Joe was a good baker, she would agree on that whole heartedly, but although she wouldn't want to offend him she still always tried to keep aware of what she ate. A healthy diet meant a healthy look, and that meant none of the break outs that so many teenage girls were prone to, that she was prone to.

But, all in all, a few cookies probably wouldn’t hurt.

“Why don’t you head up to my room, and I’ll grab us some drinks?” she offered, a fair trade of hospitality after he brought the snacks. He could set up, she could avoid her brothers, and everything after that would be boring studying gravy.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about them. They were supposed to be at a friend’s party, but apparently the kid’s sick.” She shrugged, an awkward look plastered on her face. “Give me a second; I’ll get rid of them.”

Stepping aside to let Joe into her house, she turned on foot and jabbed her finger towards her brothers who were still giggling like a pair of monkeys. “If you two don’t get lost right now, I’ll tell Mom you were annoying me whilst I was studying.”

That did it. The two were still too young and spoiled to really understand the importance of studying, but they’d quickly come to associate the word with punishment whenever Gabriella used it on them. They rushed down the rest of the stairs and back into the den, slowing down only to flash the two another cheeky grin, and just like that they were out of their sister’s hair again. For now, anyway.

“I really am sorry. We should be fine in my room, but we could do this another day if you want.” She said, her choice of words as diplomatic as ever. The last thing she wanted was for Joe to leave her alone with her brothers, and she really had been looking forward to spending the afternoon with him. Even if the two would have their heads buried in books, it beat having your head buried in a book alone, every time.

Gabriella had been hypnotised by the gorgeous view out her window when her bedroom door opened, the terrible two standing in the doorway.

“Door.” Joseph, the younger brother, said with a mischievous grin.

Gabriella scowled in return. “Then open it.” She snapped back, despite already having gotten up to let Joe in. She knew that the two in front of her would never do so, no matter how many times she told them to.

“Mom said not to.” Kenneth, identical to his brother save for a mole on his cheek, replied with a nasal giggle. Gabriella continued to scowl, unsympathetic to her mother's concerns of stranger danger when it interfered with her afternoon.

“It’s Joe, you know Joe.” There was no doubt they’d already looked out the window and seen who it was, which would explain why they wouldn’t stop laughing (“Joe and Gabby, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”) but they still had to take the long road and inconvenience their big sister, every single time.

Before they could think what to reply, she had already barged past them and headed towards the front door, the two following behind to hide on the stairs and watch for the sole purpose of annoying her and Joe.

She glanced over herself in the mirror by the front door, a force of habit she had no interest in breaking, and brushed a stray hair out of her forehead. She turned around and spat a “Get lost!” back at her brothers, before finally letting Joe in.

It was two o’clock on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the sun hanging in the air and beaming down on the rest of the neighbourhood without a cloud in sight. It was by far the best weather in months, and Gabriella Parker was taking advantage of it by enjoying a long glass of iced tea by her sparkling pool, her favourite music humming in her headphones. She was rewarding herself after a hard week’s work spent studying and rehearsing, whilst her two little bothers were at their friend’s birthday party and her parents went shopping.

Or rather, that had been the plan.

It was still by far the best weather that Seattle had experienced in months, bar none, but Gabriella was barred from enjoying it, trapped in her bedroom with nothing but the rays making it through her bay window. This was because there was a test approaching in less than two weeks. It wasn’t one that mattered much, more of a review test than anything, but her parents, with their hawk-like vigilance, never failed to pry the existence of such things from her.

“They’re all important, Gabriella.” Her mother would say, in that tone that always sounded so patronising.

That meant that almost anything social or not studying, save what she could grab between leaving school and arriving home, was pretty much off the table until the test was over. Even her rehearsing took a hit at times like these.

As a small mercy, however, her parents allowed group study sessions. They weren’t monsters, after all.

The other thing that failed to fit in with her ideal weekend was the presence of her younger siblings. Apparently the unlucky kid whose party they were meant to attend was sick on his birthday, so the event was cancelled for the time being. As a result, they were spending the beautiful day playing another one of their stupid video games, at full volume no less, in the den.

She kept insisting that her parents not call it babysitting, that she just happened to be home whilst her brothers were there, but her father kept pointing out with a smirk that babysitting was exactly what she was doing. If her brothers knew Gabriella was studying they were supposed to be considerate of the noise, but they were seven years old, so of course there was still noise.

In her room, however, it was almost silent, thankfully. Ever since she’d become so involved in her music, her parents had taken steps to soundproof her room so that she could practice without disturbing the rest of the house in the middle of the night. Though the noise from her siblings still permeated through the walls, turning on some music was enough to drown it out on most occasions.

She checked her watch and saw that her guest would be here soon, if he wasn’t already ringing the doorbell whilst no-one answered. She had her books splayed out across her bed and her notepad with a fresh pen on hand. Her parents always insisted on note taking: you can’t learn nearly as much from just reading books, they always told her, and if she didn’t have any notes then she could have spent the whole afternoon doing nothing as far as they knew.

She looked out of her window at the pool below, it tempting her as it sparkled in the sunlight to just forget it all and go relax.

But if she did that, the payoff could never compare to the punishment.